Star Alliance, Virgin, and China

[danmancs]

Hi All,

I've just moved to China and find myself with a bit of a problem. I have wp status on QF, and silver status with Virgin Atlantic (was gold last year). Now, obviously living in China and travelling around a lot, Air China figures quite highly in my arrangements, however, they told me that they won't status match against my oneworld status.

Air China is a partner with VA, however only on their LHR-PEK route, which seems bizarre! Given that VA is half owned by SQ and is partners with most of the *A members, does anyone know why it is not a full member?

Next week I have a J class trip on CA, TAO-PEK-FRA-CPH with the FRA-CPH leg being a LH flight. So far I only have one short domestic leg racked up with CA phoenix miles, so is it worth me sticking with CA, or opening up a LH ff account instead?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Cheers,
Dan.

 

[dajop]

Hi Next week I have a J class trip on CA, TAO-PEK-FRA-CPH with the FRA-CPH leg being a LH flight. So far I only have one short domestic leg racked up with CA phoenix miles, so is it worth me sticking with CA, or opening up a LH ff account instead?

Really depends on what you want to achieve, status or award redemptions? And depends on your overall travel patterns. For example if you are doing a lot of short domestic flights within China up the front of the plane (F or J) then Air NZ program's maybe worth considering for getting status quickly. Some status runs in F could you get their quite quickly.

However NZ redemptions on star partners are quite pricey so you lose out on that one. And unfortunately NZ is really bad for earning points/status on J travel between Asia and Europe on partner airlines - your current itinerary (assuming return in same route) wouldn't even get you half way to gold (by way of contrast if you flew on NZ to Europe between HKG-LHR ie TAO-PEK-HKG-LHR-CPH return, you would get to Star gold by the time you arrived back home.)

 

[danmancs]

Thanks Dajop, unfortunately short flights are always Y. I guess I'll stick with the CA programme, and see how it goes. At this point I'm really only bothered about lounge access, just the thought of sitting on a hard seat without a free G&T brings me out in a cold sweat!

Normally I would fly via HKG on CX or via LHR on BA, but this itinery was all about the timing, CA was definitely not my first choice, I'd have taken LH or SAS all the way had their times been better.

 

[dajop]

Thanks Dajop, unfortunately short flights are always Y. I guess I'll stick with the CA programme, and see how it goes. At this point I'm really only bothered about lounge access, just the thought of sitting on a hard seat without a free G&T brings me out in a cold sweat!
.

Point taken re the G&T, although I guess T3 at PEK is not too bad even without lounge access.

One thing I forgot too mention worth considering is BMI. You will earn 1.5 pts/mile in J on CA. They do have good options for redemption including a really quite lucrative points + pay option that makes for good value business class redemptions. The status thing is a bit weird with them - once getting to silver (16K miles) you get another 12 mths to get to gold (another 38K miles), it does give you more time to get there. And once there the points start rolling in as unused status miles get converted into miles to use on awards.

I suggest the best thing is to do your homework to see if it would work for you, but the link to bmi is
Diamond Club | free airmiles | free flights | Fly bmi

 

[danmancs]

I realised I have a Thai Air account with about 9000 miles on it, not a lot, but I figure I might as well add to that. I've emailed them to ask for a OneWorld status match, so we'll see if that does anything. Otherwise it probably won't take long to get up to gold anyway.